Lawn Mowing With An Overactive Imagination
by ahrocks08
Summary: Lily has to mow her lawn the muggle way and her imagination runs wild. What would happen if her fantasies came true?


**A/N: I am in the process of writing Through The Veil chapter 3, but recent personal experiences provoked my creativeness in a different direction, so here I am writing a completely random one shot I thought up while mowing the lawn. Warning: my own personal thoughts are described here, only slightly intensified.**

**My Beta hasn't checked this, so let me know if there are any terrible mistakes. **

**I'm dedicating this to my dad, cuz he made me mow the lawn today.**

**_Lawn Mowing With An Overactive Imagination_**

I just finished my 6th year at Hogwarts, and my parents are already putting me to work. How cruel is that?

Ok, so I finished last week, but still. I just spent the whole week visiting with relatives and lying outrageously about what I have been up to this whole year. I couldn't tell them what I have really been up to; they would probably commit me to a psych ward before my parents could stop them.

In case you didn't already guess, all my relatives are muggles. They don't know that I go to Hogwarts. They think that I go to some boarding school for really smart kids. That's fine with me. Makes me sound smart.

Anyway, back to my rant. They put me to work on my first free day. My parents, I mean, not my relatives, although if they had thought about it…

Not the point. The point is that I have a list of things to get done while my parents are out today. They didn't even tell me what they were doing, they just said that they wouldn't be back until late tonight and that "they would appreciate it if I would do some chores while they were away".

Humph. The moment I get back, they put me to work. Not nice. I was really looking forward to relaxing. I wanted to watch some movies that I hadn't seen in ages. Actually I was planning an all-out marathon with all my favorite actors, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, and Audrey Hepburn. I hate that I can't watch movies at Hogwarts, I love movies. Then I was going to read my favorite books. Actually it's a series, The Anne of Green Gables series to be exact. This would have taken more than one day, but that was the plan. But no, I get stuck with a to-do list.

Here's what I have to do:

Sweep the kitchen

Dust the downstairs

Wash the dishes

Make brownies

Do the laundry

Mow the lawn

Mow the lawn! My parents are evil! I never have to mow the lawn. All the others I can easily do. Although I have no idea why my mum wants me to make brownies, but again, not complaining, I love brownies. I better get some.

Needless to say, I was dreading mowing the lawn. So I dragged my feet while I did the other chores, listening to the radio. Another thing I miss when I am at Hogwarts. I miss out so much on the current music.

Anyway, eventually it was time to go mow, so I put on some old clothes and headed outside. That's when I realized that if I were a couple months older, I would be seventeen and I would be able to magic all this stuff done. Well, that put me in a sourer mood. Ugh, two more months and I could be done with this stuff in like two minutes.

While I was grumbling, I began mowing the yard.

That's when I started daydreaming. I have a very wild imagination sometimes, so I wasn't too surprised at myself when I started imagining ways that I could get out of mowing the lawn. The first few were normal, more likely things that could happen.

For example, the mower could break. That would be excellent. Or it would start to rain. The only problem with that one being that there isn't a cloud in the sky. Of course, the weather is never on my side. The weather hates me. It's true. Ask Alice. It never goes the way I ask it. Like this one time I wanted it to rain so that Care of Magical Creatures class would be cancelled so that I could finish a Transfiguration essay. Wouldn't you know it was the nicest day of the whole school year?

Anyway, those were more rational ideas. When those didn't happen I wished for more drastic measures. Like twisting my ankle in a hole, or having an asthma attack. I don't even have asthma. That is how much I don't like mowing the lawn, and I have only done it once before. My father showed me how, "just in case I ever needed to mow". Humph, he just wanted someone else to do the dirty work for him.

And it is dirty. I know I am going to have grass everywhere when I get done with this. It's probably in my hair and even under my clothes. Ugh, my tennis shoes, that used to be white, mind you, are all covered in green. If I had wanted green tennis shoes, then I would have bought green tennis shoes. My parents owe me new tennis shoes after this.

Then, after it became apparent that I was going to have to finish mowing, I started imagining how nice it would be if someone would come and mow for me. And by someone, I mean some guy. I don't have a specific guy, for all I cared it could be that slightly creepy boy that lives next door who I _think_ that he is close to my age, but can never tell, or it could be some random stranger that is walking by and sees me struggling with the mower. It's embarrassing to admit it, but I couldn't help imagining how romantic it would be for a man to come up to me while I was mowing, smile at me, and ask me if I would like him to finish up for me. And he would, of course, think that I am beautiful even though I am wearing an old pair of jean shorts and a ratty t-shirt, with my hair pulled back in a messy bun and sweating profusely.

I sighed, that would just be the ultimate scene in a romance novel. You know, like the scene that the woman realizes that she is in love with the man and that she can't live without him. Hmm, I should really consider writing a romance novel. I should think I have read enough of them to know how to write one. If I ever do, I'm putting this whole experience in there. Oh! Maybe he could own a landscaping company, and she…well, I don't know, maybe she could be working for him out of desperation. I don't know, that sounds a little cheesy.

Anyway, that was completely off topic. Get back on track, Lily!

So, even though I know that my imaginations are not likely to come true, I can always imagine. I would be walking with my back to the house, and he would be coming around the side, and I would see him as I turned and started the next row. I would jump in surprise and stare at him with curiosity as he made his way over to me, then he would say…

"Hey Lily, would you like me to finish that up for you?"

To which I would say…

"Are you sure you want to?"

Then he would laugh and say that it would be no problem and that I should run inside and get something to drink. Which I would do, and I would also try to clean myself up, which is impossible to do without taking a shower. And I couldn't very well take a shower while he was out there mowing. That would be rude, so I would grab him a glass of water and take it to him outside, where he is almost finished. He would have done in 15 minutes what would have taken me 30.

After he got done we would sit in the yard and talk about random things such as the weather and school, and stuff like that. Then he would…

I didn't get any farther than that, because at that moment, I turned the mower around toward the house and jumped about ten feet in the air.

James Potter was sitting in a lawn chair on the deck.

He started walking toward me with a very cute grin on his face. I might as well admit it now that I might, possibly fancy him just a bit, despite what I say at school, but only Alice knows this, and she is sworn to secrecy. And I should also admit that I was secretly imagining James being the one to "rescue me" from the evil lawn mower, and not imagining my creepy neighbor or a complete stranger.

So now you can accurately imagine the surprise I felt and the panicky thoughts that were running through my head when I saw James start walking toward me.

"What are you doing here, James?" I asked, rather calmly, I must admit.

"I was just in the neighborhood," he said. But we both knew he was lying. And he knew that I knew, because he was wearing that adorable grin that he wore when he knew he was in trouble. "Lily, would you like me to finish this up for you?"

It took me a minute to realize that he had actually said that. It took me another minute to find my voice to ask him the question that I had already imagined saying.

"Are you sure you want to?"

Wouldn't you know that James laughed, and then proceeded to say: "Of course I do. Why don't you run inside and get something to drink. You look parched."

I nodded, then headed into the house in a daze. I gulped down a glass of water, because I really was parched. Then I practically ran to the bathroom to wash my red, sweat soaked face and pick the grass out of my hair. I glanced at the shower, but I already knew that it would be rude to take a shower (see above fantasies). So instead, I refilled my water glass and grabbed James one, then headed back outside.

James was almost done with the yard when I got back out there. One thing I didn't imagine was that James would take his shirt off. Boy, am I glad that he did though. James has a nice body. I think I stopped breathing for a few seconds when I first saw him. Then I had to keep reminding my self to breathe. Step, breathe, step, take a sip of water, breathe, step, breathe…

When James was done he took his glass and sat down next to me in the chair he occupied earlier when I first saw him.

"Why did you really come here today, James?" I asked, burning with curiosity.

He looked at me a moment, debating whether or not to tell me the truth, I guessed. Then he shrugged his shoulders and said, "I wanted to see and talk to you outside of school, plus, Alice owled me a few days ago and hinted that perhaps your feelings toward me had changed over the years. She made it sound like I might have a chance with you. It sounded too good to be true, and it took me until today to get up the courage to come see you."

Humph. I can't believe my best friend went behind my back to tell the guy that I fancy that I fancy him. How embarrassing.

"I can't believe she told you," I grumbled.

"I'm glad she did," James said softly.

I looked up to James at that moment. He was looking at me with a different expression than I had ever seen before. I couldn't read it at all.

Then he leaned over and kissed me. And I kissed him back, letting him know that whatever Alice had told him was true, that I did fancy him, and that I definitely mind that he was kissing me. When we broke apart, I had to ask him one thing before we did anything else.

"James, can you read my mind?"

"Er, no. Why do you ask?" James asked, looking slightly confused.

"Because you just made all my fantasies come true," I told him, then leaned over to kiss him again.

**A/N I just wrote this in like two hours. I know it is rather random. But I just want everyone to know that all of Lily's thought while she is mowing were exactly my thoughts as I was mowing today.**

**Those who read Through the Veil will be happy to know that I am working on that right now. **

**Reviews always make me happy!**


End file.
